Meghan Markle has denied deliberately misleading the court after she forgot about asking an aide to brief the author of a biography.

She confirmed she had misremembered the circumstances around how information was given to the authors of Finding Freedom.

Details about Meghan’s life included in the book play a role in an ongoing legal battle between the Duchess of Sussex and a newspaper.

Meghan is suing the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, Associated Newspapers Limited, over five articles that reproduced parts of a ‘personal and private’ letter sent to her father Thomas Markle, 77, in August 2018.

Lawyers for ANL have argued the letter was drawn up with ‘public consumption in mind’ and are appealing an earlier ruling that publishing the letter was unlawful.

Meghan denied deliberately misleading the court over the biography and said stress resulting from pregnancy and the aftermath of her miscarriage may have contributed to the error.

The court heard this week that Meghan and Harry’s former communications secretary Jason Knauf provided information to the authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.

In a witness statement, Mr Knauf said the book was ‘discussed on a routine basis’, which was ‘discussed directly with the duchess multiple times in person and over email’.

Mr Knauff said he had been briefed by Meghan with information to share with the author, including how she had ‘very minimal contact’ with her half-siblings in childhood, and planning a meeting was discussed. 

Emails released as part of Mr Knauf’s statement showed he had emailed Harry to discuss the book and to say he would meet the authors.

According to the former aide, the duke replied: ‘I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t have anything to do with it.

‘Equally, you giving the right context and background to them would help get some truths out there.’

In her witness statement, made public on Wednesday, Meghan apologised for misleading the court about whether Mr Knauf provided information to Mr Scobie or Ms Durand.

She said: ‘I accept that Mr Knauf did provide some information to the authors for the book and that he did so with my knowledge, for a meeting that he planned for with the authors in his capacity as communications secretary.

‘The extent of the information he shared is unknown to me.

‘When I approved the passage…I did not have the benefit of seeing these emails and I apologise to the court for the fact that I had not remembered these exchanges at the time.

‘I had absolutely no wish or intention to mislead the defendant or the court.’

Meghan added that she would have been ‘more than happy’ to refer to the exchanges with Mr Knauf if she had been aware of them at the time, adding they are ‘a far cry from the very detailed personal information that the defendant alleges that I wanted or permitted to put into the public domain’.

She said she was advised to avoid stress, after her recent miscarriage, which came shortly after ANL indicated it wished to reveal the identities of her five friends who gave an interview to the US magazine, People, in which they referred to her relationship with her father.

Meghan said: ‘I was in the first trimester of my third pregnancy at the time, having suffered a miscarriage a few months prior, and was feeling very unwell.

‘My doctor advised me to avoid stress, particularly given the recent miscarriage days after the defendant threatened to break the confidentiality of the original ‘sources’ for the People magazine article, which resulted in my having to make an urgent application for an anonymity order.

‘This was granted … but I found the process extremely stressful, and it took its toll physically and emotionally.

‘I have at all times wanted to protect the privacy of those friends, while the defendant was, it seemed to me, doing everything it could to make this litigation as intrusive as possible.’

The case continues.

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